Posts Tagged ‘Health’

A couple of weeks ago, the Poptart outgrew the small diapers I had for her. So I called the service and arranged for larger diapers. The problem? That was a weekend and they only deliver on Thursday. Meh, I thought. A few days of disposables won’t hurt. Because I’m just not doing that much laundry.

So we put her in disposables and she got a rash. We tried vaseline, zinc-based creams, and lubed her up like you wouldn’t believe before diapering her and nothing. I even let her air out for a few hours one day on a pile of towels and a waterproof pad (and really, she’s a nudist and loves being nekkid). We switched brands. Nothing helped.

So when the diapers were delivered I put her back in cloth. Within about a day, the rash had just about cleared up.

SOLD.

(we still put her in a disposable at night, but that’s because they absorb better and she sleeps a bit longer)

At the same time, I’d started looking into diaper wipes. Apparently, most of the chemicals used on them are not baby safe. And they’re freaking expensive.

So I cut up some extra receiving blankets to about the size of commercial wipes and made a solution of water, baby wash and a couple of drops of tea tree oil and started using that. And her skin has never been better. In fact, I’m starting to think I should be using that solution on my nether regions.

My only problem is that the cut up receiving blankets shed after they’re washed because the edges fray and I don’t sew. If anyone wants to hem them for me, there’s a bottle of wine in it for you 🙂

Also there is still time to sign the cloth diaper petition! If you want a copy I have a pdf and you can email me at rtissues (at) gmail (dot) com for a copy.

Several years back I received an email with oneliners for men who are going to the doctor to get their prostates checked:

{1} “Take it easy, Doc. You’re boldly going where no man has gone before!”
{2} “Find Amelia Earhart yet?”
{3} “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
{4} “You know, in Arkansas, we’re now legally married.”
{6} “Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?”
{7} “You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out…”
{8} “Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!”
{9} “If your hand doesn’t fit, you must quit!”
{10} “Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.”
{11} “You used to be an executive at Enron, didn’t you?”

And the best one of all..

{12} “Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?

My dad is a bit of a hypochondriac. He’s good about it though: he goes to the doctor regularly and gets checked out.

The other side of it is that he’s also paranoid about drugs. You name it, he can find something wrong with it. Morphine? Addictive. Flonase (a corticosteroid spray for allergies)? Steroids are bad. Tylenol? Bad for your liver. So he avoids drugs like the plague (his drug of choice is often scotch).

We deal with the hypochondria/paranoia by being really irreverent about it. We make jokes about medical treatments.

A couple of years ago, his prostate was enlarged. So he kept going regularly to get checked out and had the blood tests, etc. Long story short, he phoned me back in September some time:

Dad: So I have prostate cancer.
Me: Oh?
Dad: Ya, and for radiation treatment, they’re going to implant some seeds in my butt. So I’ll be glowing out of my ass in time for Christmas.
Me: oh, that’s nice.
Dad: But first I have to go in for some blood tests to check my liver and discuss treatment with the oncologist. And some other test where they put a camera up my butt.
Me: But its early on, yes? And they’ll put the video on YouTube, right?
Dad: Oh yeah.
Me: are they checking your liver too?
Dad: Yep. So I have been very good about the scotch.

(after the blood tests came back and his liver was clear, he celebrated with scotch)

Now, I know prostate cancer is a serious thing. This is how we deal with it as a family.

Dad was scanned early on, and the oncologist put him on a hormone treatment to reduce the size of his prostate. That was about a month ago.

He went in for his 6 month checkup a couple of weeks ago. In his bloodwork, the doctor included the tests for prostate cancer (whatever they measure).

So what’s this mean? Gentlemen, I know its not a comfortable subject, but get checked early, and get checked regularly. Learn the pleasure of being a muppet starting at age 40. Prevention and early detection are the best defense against this: early detection has a 90% cure rate. And quite honestly, if you live in Canada, you have no excuse – this is included in your provincial medical care.

Have you noticed that every once in awhile I start talking about getting healthy, and working out and shit? And then I stop for a bit?

Well, its annoying because it makes me seem really inconsistent and not really interested in it. I have a reason though.

Every time I start working out, I get sick. Last time it was some sort of virus that settled in my sinuses. This time, it’s a virus that settled in my sinuses again (seriously, yesterday, when I got up, I blew my nose and I went through half a box of Puffs. I think part of my brain came out) including my ears so I have the added benefit of vertigo.

My life has been rather mundane lately, or at least it seems so. Over the last three weeks, I’ve had one day off. ONE DAY. And I’m looking forward to having this weekend and next weekend off (and sort of hoping that the NLS I agreed to teach in May doesn’t run because I am FRIED).

At some point over the last week and a half (or maybe its longer than that), I received the BYO bags I won it the BlogHers ACT February contest. And I lurve them. My only complaint is that the drawstring on them tends to come loose in my reusable shopping bags. I fixed this by wrapping the string around the neck and that seems to hold it. And they came in really handy at the veggie market when I discovered they were out of the brown paper bags I usually put mushrooms in. I’ve had the mushrooms in it for a few days and they look just as robust as they did when I bought them a few days ago.

I have also been quite tired lately. The getting up when the alarm goes off at half-past-dark is wearing thin. Followed by at least an hour’s commute to work and back again at the end of the day makes for some VERY VERY VERY long days. Although The Tired has been good – I am sleeping through the night rather than waking up at 2am, 4am, etc. however briefly.

The alarm screaming in my ear when I’m at the deepest part of sleep is not cool, however.

And the reasons for the tiredness are probably multiple. I went off birth control (and I will spare you the stories of the stuff coming from my nether regions after over a decade on the pill), and I’m wondering if The Tired isn’t something to do with my body adjusting. I have been going to the gym at lunch. I am lucky enough to get to combine all of my breaks and use the hour and 20 minutes to get some exercise. I went 4 times last week (plus 4 hours in the pool on the weekend) and three times this week. It would have been more but I tweaked my knee on Sunday when performing, uhm…ACTIVITIES and it was feeling none too good by Tuesday so I took the day off, and stretched the crap out of it on Wednesday. It feels much better now.

Yesterday, I left work early in order to meet the airconditioner guy who was supposed to show up between 1 and 4. He came by at 5. But the air conditioner is now clean and works. We won’t roast this summer. But for now, we don’t need it. Its fucking cold out. They’re calling for SNOW. In April. In VANCOUVER.

I am so ready for spring and some warm weather. So ready.

So ready in fact, I finally did something that I’ve been talking about for years. Every time I go in to see my optometrist, he tells me I’m a good candidate for corrective laser eye surgery. And my benefits now cover part of it. On May 9, I have a consult with one of the top laser surgeons in Vancouver, who comes highly recommended by my optometrist, the general public and one of the bigwigs at work who had her eyes fixed by him years ago when the technology was still new. I am hoping to get my eyes fixed over the summer.

And now, since its the first weekend I’ve had off in three weeks, I have things to do. I’ve decided to organize my house, one section at a time and the kitchen is the first up.

Comments Off on And it seems I have successfully upgraded and girly bits

I hope, anyways. I shouldn’t say that *I* upgraded – Darren actually did the work. Except my rss feed still doesn’t work – there’s an error on line 5 apparently. If anyone knows anything about this error, any help would be appreciated:

An invalid character was found in text content.
Line: 274 Character: 5

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I fixed it. Am brilliant. Amazing. Divine and gorgeous.

Also, I have reactivated Akismet in the hopes it might work and turned off the requirement to have a previously-approved comment. Hopefully, there will be no spam and I will be able to free non-spam messages from it.

I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel: I have one section on a paper to write and hand it in tomorrow, and the course I’ve been teaching is 2/3 over.

I have a bunch of stuff burbling around in my brain, not the least of which is my doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Its time for the annual poke ‘n prod, and she’s going to offer a refill on my birth control, which, well.

After 15 or so years on birth control, almost continually, I think its time for a break and let my body regulate itself for awhile. So we’ve discussed and we’ll just see what happens.

There are other benefits too. It means I actually have to drag my flabby butt to the gym a few times a week. The entire reason I went on birth control in the first place was because of The Cramps. Like just about passing out from the pain type cramps. The only things that make them manageable are birth control and exercise.